Friday, 19 December 2014

2014 Memoriams May

Actor who appeared in Doctor Who’s The Underwater Menace. He
also appeared in Z-Cars, Only Fools and Horses, and The Liver Birds.

1st May 2014 – David Stoliar, 91

Sole survivor of the MV Sturma Incident in 1942.

“Stoliar's story has always been a taboo of sorts. His
ordeal illuminates a forgotten, inconvenient chapter of the Holocaust, which
the then-Allies would rather not be reminded of. For, if anything, they chose
to look the other way -- before, during and after. "Everybody had an excuse,"
Marda [his wife] says. That chapter found its horrifying conclusion in the
Black Sea, near Istanbul, in the wee hours of February 24, 1942. That's when a
Soviet submarine sank a Jewish refugee ship en route to what was then the
British Mandate of Palestine. All told, 786 people, among them 101 children,
either died instantly or slowly froze and drowned in the wintry water. Only one
of them made it. "There was no reason for me to survive," Stoliar
says. "I feel like I survived by luck. Pure luck." To this day he
struggles with guilt. Psychologists call this the Holocaust Syndrome.”
Marc Pitzke, Der Spiegel

2nd May 2014 – Efrem Zimbalist Jr, 95

American actor best known as the voice of Alfred in the
animated Batman series, and as Doctor Octopus in the Spiderman cartoon. He also
had a recurring role on Babylon Five, as well as roles in Murder She Wrote,
Remmington Steele and Wait until Dark. He also supplied voice talents to the
Mighty Ducks, Iron Man, and Gargoyles, among
many.

2nd May 2014 – Sir William Benyon, 84

Tory MP for Buckingham from 1970-83 (replacing Robert
Maxwell), and Milton Keynes from 1983-92.

“A grandson of Lord Salisbury, Bill Benyon chaired the “One
Nation” group and joined Tory “wets” in opposing several of Margaret Thatcher’s
policies, including the poll tax. But he respected her highly, and when his
friend Michael Heseltine challenged her in 1990, he rallied behind the Prime
Minister, declaring: “This is war.”Despite their, at times, public
disagreements — notably over parental contributions to student support — and
the occasional “handbagging” when Mrs Thatcher met the executive of the 1922
Committee, the respect was mutual. After Benyon was mugged outside the gates of
his estate, she wrote him a three-page letter of commiseration.”

Telegraph obit

3rd May 2014 – Jim Sprott, 89

Forensic scientist who focused on cot death.

“Dr Sprott came to national attention in the 1970s as a
leading figure in the drive to overturn the conviction of Arthur Allan Thomas
for the murders of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe. He was a principal witness before
the Royal Commission of Inquiry on the case, presenting his analysis of the
bullet cartridges that formed an important part of the evidence. He later
became involved with the notorious cases of Murray Kestle - who was convicted
of murdering his newlywed wife in 1973 - and of serial rapist Mark Stephens,
the Parnell Panther. His work on the Stephens case led to a warning in 1988 by
the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry that he risked struck from the register
if he didn't stop making accusations that reflected badly on a fellow chemist.
Crime was not the only field that drew Dr Sprott's attention. He was involved
in road safety research, arterial disease treatment and, in 1996, a petition
calling for the Government to maintain New Zealand's membership of ANZUS and
abandon the country's anti-nuclear stance.”
Radio NZ obit

3rd May 2014 – Gary Becker, 83

American economist.

3rd May 2014 – Leslie Carlson, 81

Videodrome actor. He also appeared in the Fly and 2 episodes
of the X-Files.

4th May 2014 – Elena Baltacha, 30

Scottish born tennis player.

Quoted from article written in 2012:

“To be a professional
sports star in Britain is in many ways to take on the mantle of permanent
criticism. Beyond the idealism of Premiership football, and in most
disciplines, the most press a sports person gets is when they lose out on
something, and then it’s so the press can get the knives out. This is more so
in tennis, where to the mainstream press, it is Wimbledon or nothing. No matter
what a tennis player does in their career, if they fail to win this specific
Grand Slam (something currently done by about 5 out of 20, 000 active female
tennis players, incidentally) then they are forever a failure. To deal with
this, you need an incredible thick skin. To come back from a near fatal liver condition,
deal with it, and wind up playing better than you did before? That takes more
guts than any of the press charlatans have put together.

The daughter of USSR football ace Sergei, Elena Baltacha was born in 1983, and
grow up in Scotland after being born in Kiev. She grew into tennis, and by age
18 was showing flashes of potential brilliance, having won Fed Cup matches and
produced some fighting displays at Slam level. Then came disaster. Cholangitis
is not an illness that rolls off the tongue, but the primary issue –
inflammation of the liver causing blockage of the bile ducts – is serious
enough. How serious? It can cause death within ten years in untreated cases.
Even successful treatment might shorten considerably a lifespan.

No one could have forsaken her had she given up at these odds being thrown at
her, but this was not to prove Elena’s style. Vast surgeries put her out of
action for the majority of 2003.

“ if someone had told me that I would end up playing people like Maria
Sharapova and Kim Clijsters, competing at all the grand slams and on the WTA
Tour, I wouldn’t have believed them. I’d be feeling so exhausted all time time
in the months leading up to the diagnosis and it was hard to imagine ever being
fit to play again.”

Baltacha returned to tennis, and competed at a high level in spite of her ills
for the next eight years. One of the first women in some time from Britain to
qualify for all four Grand Slams, she was left holding the flag for British
womens tennis in the barren years before the recent appearance of Heather
Watson, Jan Konta and Laura Robson to take the pressure off, as well as the
later career resurgence of Anne Keothavong. She was never going to be winning
any Slams – though her performances were often exemplary, especially her two
third rounds of the Australian Open, in 2005 and 2010.

But let’s put this into perspective. This girl needs to take ten pills a day to
prevent her condition becoming fatal. Yet she’s been a consistent top 100
player for vast quantities of the last five years. That takes an effort and a
heart, which is beyond my comprehension.

It does bring up issues. See the controversy stirred up by certain papers and
commentators over her pulling out of the New Dehli Commonwealth games in 2010,
under doctors advice about the environment being detrimental to her
condition.

Elena Baltacha is now patron of the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation.”

In January 2014, Baltacha found out that she had liver
cancer, a common side effect of her illness.

“"We are heartbroken beyond words at the loss of our
beautiful, talented and determined Bally," read a statement from Nino
Severino, Baltacha's husband and long-time coach."She was
an amazing person and she touched so many people with her inspirational spirit,
her warmth and her kindness."”
CNN

“Today British Tennis mourns the loss of one of our own. The news of the death
of Elena Baltacha, one of the shining lights of British women’s tennis of
recent generations, is devastating to everyone who has ever had the privilege
to know her, play against her, or call her a friend or teammate. It leaves a
huge hole within our sport. Bally gave new meaning to the word ‘fighter.’ She
fought tirelessly during her career against opposition on court, and never gave
in to the struggles she endured off it. Forever remembered for her relentless
determination, unbelievable drive and a will-power that never ceased to amaze
us, it was a pleasure to watch Bally develop into a world class player and
become an outstanding role model for everyone in the gameThe health issues she
battled since her teenage years made what she achieved during her career all
the more impressive. Nobody will ever forget the scenes at Wimbledon two
summers ago when Bally found out she had gained a place at the London 2012
Olympic Games. There were tears of joy as she finally realised her lifelong
ambition – to become an Olympian. Even after Bally hung up her rackets, she
continued to give back to the sport she loved by setting up the Elena Baltacha
Academy of Tennis.”

LTA statement

4th May 2014 – William Worthy, 92

Civil rights activist and journalist.

“William Worthy, a foreign correspondent who in the thick of
the Cold War ventured where the United States did not want him to go —
including the Soviet Union, China, Cuba — and became the subject of both a
landmark federal case concerning travel rights and a ballad by the protest
singer Phil Ochs, died on May 4 in Brewster, Mass. He was 92.”

Margalit Fox, New York Times obit

“In the early 1980s, Mr. Worthy challenged the U.S.
government with his reportage from Iran after the Islamic revolution led by
Ayatollah Khomeini.In the course of his reporting, Mr. Worthy obtained copies
of documents that were stolen from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the
hostage crisis and later published in Iran. U.S. government officials seized
one set of copies. Mr. Worthy and his colleagues provided another copy to The
Washington Post, which published a series of articles based on the documents
and other sources. The journalists later reached a legal settlement with the
U.S. government in which the reporters were awarded $16,000 stemming from the
confiscation of the volumes. “Americans have a right to know what’s going on in
the world in their name,” he said at the time.”

Emily Langer, Washington Post obit

6th May 2014 – Leslie Thomas, 83

Welsh author who wrote the Virgin Soldiers and created
Dangerous Davies, the comedic police officer brought to the small screen by
Peter Davison.

“He hailed from a seafaring family — his grandfather had
sailed round Cape Horn, but was said to have left the sea because he objected
to his shipmates’ bad language. In 1943, when Leslie was 12, his father drowned
after his ship was torpedoed by a U-boat, and six months later his mother died.
Leslie and his nine-year-old brother, Roy, were installed in a Dr Barnardo’s
home at Kingston upon Thames in Surrey. “We had cardboard on the windows where
they’d been blown in,” he later recalled. “The flying bombs were dropping
then.”One of his many uncles attempted to retrieve the boys from the orphanage,
but failed to convince the institution that he would be a suitable guardian: “
Any chances of us being allowed to live with him were dashed when he offered
the Barnardo’s representative a gin and tonic.”

Telegraph obit

7th May 2014 – Colin Pillinger, 70

Scientist behind the Beagle 2 Mars lander.

“Pillinger’s interplanetary investigations had begun in the
1960s, when he was one of the few British scientists invited to analyse lunar
samples brought back by the Apollo missions. In the intervening years, while he
was working for, amongst others, Patrick Moore and the BBC, public interest in
space exploration — and Mars in particular — all but dried up. Two American
missions had found evidence suggesting that Mars was barren — too toxic an
environment ever to have supported life. It was the discovery in 1996 (aided by
Pillinger’s own work) of fossil bacteria in a meteorite from the planet which
revitalised interest. Beagle 2, named by Pillinger’s wife after HMS Beagle, the
ship which carried Charles Darwin to South America , began life as a sketch on
the back of a beer mat; the first model, which was made of cardboard, could
have sprung straight out of Blue Peter. A more sophisticated version of the
clam-shaped craft was finally accepted for inclusion on the Mars Express
expedition, only for the ESA to announce that it could spare only 60kg.
Pillinger and his team rose to the challenge, and when delivered, Beagle 2 was
within 100g of the target weight.”

Telegraph obit

8th May 2014 – Beverly long, 81

Actress who appeared in Rebel Without a Clause. She later
became a Casting Director.

9th May 2014 – Mary Stewart, 97

British novelist.

“ She detested the intrusions it brought and fiercely
protected her privacy. In 1997, apprehensive about a forthcoming – and rarely
granted – press interview, she found herself unable to write for six weeks.
When her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk? (1954), was published and she saw
"This is the new star" printed next to her publicity photograph, she
burst into tears of dismay. Stewart introduced a different kind of heroine for
a newly emerging womanhood. It was her "anti-namby-pamby" reaction,
as she called it, to the "silly heroine" of the conventional
contemporary thriller who "is told not to open the door to anybody and
immediately opens it to the first person who comes along". Instead,
Stewart's stories were narrated by poised, smart, highly educated young women
who drove fast cars and knew how to fight their corner. Also tender-hearted and
with a strong moral sense, they spoke, one felt, with the voice of their
creator. Her writing must have provided a natural form of expression for a
person not given to self-revelation. Madam, Will You Talk? featured a woman
lured into danger by her concern for a motherless boy. It was an immediate
success. Over the next 15 years, a whole line of novels of a similar
suspenseful nature rolled out, with titles including Nine Coaches Waiting
(1958), My Brother Michael (1959) and The Ivy Tree (1961).”

Rachel Hore, Guardian obit

12th May 2014 – HR Giger, 74

Concept artist who came up with the designs for the Alien in
the Ridley Scott film.

13th May 2014 – Dick Douglas, 82

Scottish Labour MP for Clackmannan from 1970-4, and
Dumfermline for 1979-92, during which he refused to pay the Poll Tax and
defected to the SNP.

15th May 2014 – Jean-Luc Dehaene, 73

Former Belgian Prime Minister

“A Flemish Christian Democrat, he had an ability to
reconcile squabbling factions that almost propelled him to the presidency of
the European commission in 1994, but his zeal for federalism led the British
prime minister John Major to veto his candidacy. Dehaene's death, just 10 days
before Belgians head to the polls in joint European, national and regional
elections, seems to mark the passing of an era: Belgium's recent political
upheavals have been attributed to the dearth of operators like Dehaene, able to
roll up their sleeves and hammer out a compromise from seemingly irreconcilable
positions. As prime minister from 1992 to 1999, he steered constitutional
reforms that turned the country into a federal state by introducing direct
elections for the parliaments of Belgium's regions and language communities.
His centre-left coalitions addressed Belgium's disastrous public finances, and
his budgetary reforms, often bypassing parliament, helped ensure the country
became one of the euro's founding countries in 1999 despite it having Europe's
highest national debt.”

Leo Cendrowicz, Guardian obit

18th May 2014 – Jerry Vale, 83

American singer whose variation of the Star Spangled Banner
became popular.

19th May 2014 – Sir Jack Brabham, 88

Australian racing driver who won three Formula One
championships (1959, 1960, 1966).
Founded the Brabham racing team and won using one of their cars.

“In 1955 he left for Britain and became involved with the
father-and-son racing-car builders Charles and John Cooper, making his
Formula One debut in the 1955 British grand prix at Aintree in a central-seater
Cooper sports car. Thereafter Brabham rode the crest of the Formula One wave as
Cooper rewrote the parameters of contemporary car performance, their
rear-engined models superseding all their traditionally front-engined rivals.
Although Stirling Moss won the first Cooper victory in the 1958 Argentine Grand
Prix, once Brabham hit his stride in the summer of 1959 there was no stopping
him. With their rivals Vanwall and Maserati having dropped out of the scene,
Ferrari still wrestling with their outdated front-engined Dino 246 and Colin
Chapman's Lotus team yet to come to full flower, Cooper enjoyed a spectacular
two-year run of success. During that time Brabham won seven races and two world
championships. It was perfect timing; the right machine, driven by the right
man, at the right moment. Nevertheless, Brabham had been nurturing long-term
plans to manufacture production racing cars for the junior international
formulas in his own right. This project relied on the collaboration of his old
Australian friend and engineer Ron Tauranac, and the process inevitably
moved to its logical conclusion with the construction of Brabham's own Formula
One car.”
Alan Henry, Guardian obit

19th May 2014 – Vincent Harding, 82

American historian and
civil rights social activist. A friend of Martin Luther Kings, he wrote
Kings speech condemning the Vietnam War, a Time to Break Silence.

“For more than half a century, Dr. Harding worked at the
nexus of race, religion and social responsibility... he was widely considered a
central figure in the civil rights movement. A friend, adviser and sometime
speechwriter to Dr. King, Dr. Harding was a member of the cohort that helped
carry on his mission after his assassination in 1968. Dr. Harding, the first
director of what is now the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent
Social Change in Atlanta, was in the vanguard of promoting black studies
as an academic discipline at colleges and universities throughout the country.
He served as a consultant to television programs about the African-American
experience, notably “Eyes on the Prize,” the critically acclaimed documentary
series first broadcast on PBS in 1987. As a historian, Dr. Harding argued that
black Americans — and, by extension, all Americans — could not understand the
social struggles that lay ahead without a deep understanding of those who had
gone before. He was known in particular for two books, “There Is a River: The
Black Struggle for Freedom in America” (1981) and “Martin Luther King: The
Inconvenient Hero” (1996). In “There Is a River,” Dr. Harding examined the
tradition of black protest — a movement he likened to a river flowing through
centuries of American history — up to the end of the Civil War. Throughout the
book, he adopted the dual stance, unusual for an academic historian, of
impartial observer of past events and active participant in present ones.”
Margalit Fox, New York Times obit

“Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the
betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as
I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many
persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their
concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: 'Why are you speaking
about the war, Dr. King?' 'Why are you joining the voices of dissent?' 'Peace
and civil rights don't mix,' they say. 'Aren't you hurting the cause of your
people,' they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source
of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean
that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling.
Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they
live.”

Martin Luther King, A
Time to Break Silence speech

20th May 2014 – Barbara Murray, 84

Actress who appeared, among many other roles, in Passport to
Pimlico and Doctor Who.

25th May 2014 – Wojciech Jaruzelski, 90

Controversial Communist Polish leader from 1981-89.

25th May 2014 – Herb Jeffries, 100

American jazz singer.

28th May 2014 – Maya Angelou, 86

American author who wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

“Angelou's legacy is twofold. She leaves behind a body of
important artistic work that influenced several generations. But the
86-year-old was praised by those who knew her as a good person, a woman who
pushed for justice and education and equality. In her full life, she wrote
staggeringly beautiful poetry. She also wrote a cookbook and was nominated for
a Tony. She delivered a poem at a presidential inauguration. In 2010, President
Barack Obama named her a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
country's highest civilian honor. She was friends with Malcolm X and the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. and inspired young adults and world celebrities. She sang calypso. She lived through horrors. Her
lasting contribution to literature, "I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings," bore witness to the brutality of a Jim Crow South, portraying
racism in stark language. Readers learned of the life of Marguerite Ann Johnson
(Angelou's birth name) up to the age of 16: how she was abandoned by her
parents and raped by her mother's boyfriend. She was homeless and became a teen
mother. Its publication was both daring and historic, given the era of its
debut in 1969.”

Todd Leopold, Ashley Fantz, Moni Basu and Faith Karimi, CNN
obit

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but
you can decide not to be reduced by them.”Maya Angelou

28th May 2014 – Stan Crowther, 78

Footballer who won the 1957 FA Cup with Aston Villa, and
reached the final in 1958, having been one of the last minute signings for
Manchester United after the Munich disaster.

28th May 2014 – Malcolm Glazer, 85

American owner of Manchester United and the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers.

31st May 2014 – Mary Soames, 91

Youngest and last of Churchill’s children. Widow of
Christopher Soames (ex-MP) and mother of Nicholas (current-MP), Rupert (Serco
CEO) and Emma (ex-Telegraph editor).
Mary was herself an acclaimed writer who wrote a good biography of her
mother Clementine.

“With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Mary followed
her parents to London. Then, during the blitz, she was packed off to Chequers,
the prime minister's country retreat in Buckinghamshire. Keen for more of the
action, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service in September 1941 and
served in one of the new "mixed" anti-aircraft batteries. Life in
tents and draughty barracks was a marked change from her privileged lifestyle
to date. At one army dance, she teased an American soldier about his big feet,
whereupon he put her over his knee and gave her "about 30 good-natured
whacks". His buddy told Time magazine: "She's a regular guy and, like
her old man, can take it." Mary's battery served in London and on the
coast during the V-bomb raids of 1944, before moving on to Belgium and Germany.
Excitement of a different sort came from travelling abroad as her father's ADC.
In the summer of 1943 she went to Quebec and Washington; in July 1945 she
accompanied Winston to Potsdam for the summit with Truman and Stalin.”

David Reynolds, Guardian obit

““I knew they’d be saying: ‘Here’s Churchill’s daughter—she
won’t be scrubbing any floors!’ You had to start all over again and make the
point that you weren’t just there to polish your nails. It was much easier when
I was in the ranks. Once you were an officer, it was far more of a struggle to
be accepted. I remember my terror whenever I was sent to a new unit. On the
evenings off, there were always parties and dances, and one had a lot of fun.
When I was in the ranks, I had to be back by midnight—23.59 was the magic
number—but, when I became an officer, I quite often arrived back at four in the
morning, and was back on duty again by nine. There was a very jolly
atmosphere.”

Mary Soames, Finest Hour 116 , Autum 2002 interview

“After a stint in Brussels, where her husband was the
British vice-president of the European Community, Mary faced her most testing
role yet, when Christopher was made the last British Governor-General of
Rhodesia in the final run-up to Independence in 1979-80. The job was an
immensely difficult one — her husband was expected to preside over an election
and a ceasefire in a country where resentment, bitterness and violence ran
deep. As Mary put it: “We couldn’t very well throw tea parties on the lawn, or
have the politicians round for cocktails.” Instead, she visited schools,
hospitals, orphanages and refugee camps, launching her own fund for the
children of Rhodesia (in 1979 she had been made UK chairman of the
International Year of the Child). Soames thrived on a situation to which she
had to a large extent been born and bred. “One gets caught up in the thing. I
find that if I have been out for a couple of hours I return with the feeling
that I must have missed something. I immediately grab people and say: 'Is there
anything happening?’” She exercised her considerable charm on Rhodesian leaders
of all varieties and once found herself addressing, off-the-cuff, 900 of Joshua
Nkomo’s Zipra guerrillas when she went to inspect a field hospital. Against all
the odds, she managed to win widespread admiration and confidence, and on her
return to London her contribution was recognised when she was appointed DBE.”

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Michael S Collins

The camera didn't quite break for this one...

Welcome from a Writer

It's suggested by Blogger that a friendly message is most welcome at this juncture, so Hi!

I'm Michael S. Collins, writer and editor. I write. Fiction. Short humour. Longer stories. Plays. Articles, and not all of them on Doctor Who either. Always try to branch out and add to the craft, I guess. I edited The Christmas Book of Ghosts, and am in charge of The40p. Sometimes I even remember to update this blog!

Warning - excessive name dropping may happen.

(Folk who wish to contact me may do so at michaelthepoet@hotmail.com - I know, it's terrible, I've had it since I was 12 - or on twitter at @PseudLit)